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This week’s speaker spotlight is on Joanne Mariner and Alexander Cockburn, both of whom will be speaking at our upcoming June 6-8 conference “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties.”

Joanne Mariner is one of the most impressive people I have ever met in my life. A graduate of Yale Law School, she serves as the terrorism and counterterrorism program director at Human Rights Watch. Her articles and reports have documented war crimes in Colombia, Kosovo, and Darfur, political violence in Haiti, and rape in American prisoners.

Joanne has been at the forefront of exposing and opposing the CIA’s program of kidnapping, rendition, and torture and the Pentagon’s operations at Guantanamo Bay. I personally make it point every morning to visit findlaw.com to see if Joanne, who publishes there regularly, has a new article.

What amazes me is that this woman does not simply base her articles and reports on what she reads in the press. Whether it’s interviewing prison rapists, Darfur rebels, or Jordanian torture victims, Joanne, who is fluent in French and Spanish, is there in person, risking her well-being in the relentless pursuit of truth.

To get a sense of what kind of life this woman lives, read her article “We’ll Make You See Death,” which details some of her precarious experiences investigating torture by Jordanian officials.

At last year’s conference, you could hear a pin drop during Joanne’s talk. No doubt it will be the same this year.

Alexander Cockburn is co-editor of Counterpunch.org, another website that I make a point to visit every single morning. Counterpunch’s authors are passionate defenders of civil liberties and unrelenting foes of empire and intervention.

For many years, Alexander wrote for the Village Voice, and his articles have appeared in such publications as the New York Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and the Wall Street Journal (where he had a regular column from 1980 to 1990).

Alexander is the author or co-author of several books, including Corruptions of Empire; Washington Babylon; Whiteout; The CIA, Drugs and the Press; The Politics of Anti-Semitism; Imperial Crusades; Al Gore, A User’s Manual; and A Dime’s Worth of Difference.

To register for the conference, go to our conference website or call us at 703-934-6101. Remember to make your hotel reservations at the Hyatt Regency Reston after you register for the conference; be sure to mention the FFF conference to secure the special discounted rate of $149 per night, which is incredibly cheap for a Hyatt in the D.C. area in June.

Don’t delay! Register today!

Sincerely,
Jacob Hornberger
President
The Future of Freedom Foundation
www.fff.orgARTICLES BY JOANNE MARINER

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education.
He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at
LewRockwell.com and from
Full Context. Send him email.

Reading List

Prepared by Richard M. Ebeling

Austrian economics is a distinctive approach to the discipline of economics that analyzes market forces without ever losing sight of the logic of individual human action. Two of the major Austrian economists in the 20th century have been Friedrich A. Hayek, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Ludwig von Mises. Posted below is an Austrian Economics reading list prepared by Richard M. Ebeling, economics professor at Northwood University in Midland and former president of the Foundation for Economic Education and vice president of academic affairs at FFF.